Moods over numbers: a mid-year reading workup

Questions and diagnostics for your reading habits

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We’re halfway through 2025 and I’m reviewing my reading habits like I trepidatiously revisit my goals at year’s end.

As I’ve done since 2013, I set a reading goal for the year. Though instead of doing it on Goodreads like I always have, I finally committed to StoryGraph (and haven’t for one second missed the former). Given the extensive information StoryGraph offers readers, which is all new to me, I decided to give my reading habits a mid-year workup like a living organism, asking probing questions about what I consumed and how it all affected me. I’m digging deep into my reading diet, if you will.

Below, I check in with four aspects of my reading health — intentions, moods, cognitive expansion, and quantity. I assess what I learned, make personal declarations for each category, and provide you with questions to ask yourself so you can do your own mid-year workup.

Intentions

The predominant reason I wanted to get so granular about what I’ve read so far this year is to check in with my intentions. Am I reading because I have a weekly newsletter about books and need content to write about? Am I reading because publishers send me free books?

And if those aren’t true, would I have read the same books?

No.

Let’s take a look. Of the 30 books I’ve read so far this year:

• 9 were sent to me by publishers

• 9 were library holds when they came available

• 6 were books I found on my shelves

• 3 were new-releases I pre-ordered

• 3 were lent to me by friends

When I think about these numbers, they don’t make me feel great. I’m so lucky I get sent books by publishers — it’s an actual dream — but almost a third of the books I’ve read so far this year have been dictated by someone else. That’s not to say I read them out of obligation; I’m always thrilled to receive a book. But I’ll admit (maybe I shouldn’t) that I have roughly 20 books on my shelf sent from authors and publishers that I haven’t gotten to yet. I’m a mood reader so I won’t pick up a book if I’m not feeling it at the time because it would be a disservice to the book, the author, and myself to read something I wasn’t in the mood for.

Even now, as I write this, I’m justifying why I haven’t gotten to those 20 books, as though I have a moral obligation to put them ahead of all the other books I want to read. This is not the case.

I’m going to operate differently for the second half of the year.

Declarations about intentions

• For the second half of the year, I’ll continue reading books sent to me by publishers but I’m going to be more discerning about the ones I agree to being sent and more selective about which ones I decide to read.

• I will read three books that have been languishing on my bookshelves. They might be from publishers, they might not be. Doesn’t matter; what matters is that when it’s time to choose a new book, at least three will come from the collection I already have.

Questions to ask yourself about intentions:

• Are you reading for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons? If the latter, what’s compelling you to read for others?

• What would it look like to read explicitly for you in the second half of the year? Forget about pressures, gifted books, library holds becoming available. What would you read if you were 100% in charge?

• You are in charge, aren’t you?

Moods

After a quick glance at my StoryGraph pie chart, I see that roughly a quarter of the books I’ve read were emotional. No surprise there. The other biggest slice is reflective. Also no surprise.

The informative slice, the small cobalt blue one, surprises me a little bit, as I haven’t read much non-fiction yet this year. What I’m mostly interested in regarding moods is whether I’ve read based on my own moods or whether my moods are based on the books I’ve been reading — or neither.

In thinking about the relationship between my moods and the books I read, it’s clear that being in a specific mood doesn’t mean I want to choose that kind of book to read. Usually it goes the other way. If I’m feeling stagnant I might want something adventurous. If I’m feeling complacent I might want a challenge. But I don’t read dark books because I’m in a dark mood; I read dark books because they intrigue me and I gravitate toward off-colored stories.

I don’t pick up emotional books because I’ve been emotional lately; I pick them up because I gravitate toward honesty and interiority, both of which are present in emotional reads.

Declarations about moods

• I don’t have any! I’m into this weird variety of moods I’ve covered so far this year. And since I read based on cravings (as in, I could really go for a juicy campus novel right now), I’m sure at the end of the year this pie chart will be unrecognizable.

Questions to ask yourself about moods:

• How have the moods you’ve been reading affected the moods you’ve been feeling?

• Which do you think affects the other more: your mood and therefore your book selection, or your book selection and therefore you mood? Or neither?

• Do you have any aspirational moods for the second half of the year? How could you plan your reading to help you get there?

• Has any book wrecked you so far this year?

Cognitive expansion

I read a few books that really stretched me this year. Demon Copperhead, Rebecca, and James come to mind. Careless People, the Facebook whistleblowing book, stretched me but not in a good way. I finished that book feeling gross about the state of the world.

The books that expanded my brain the most were (not coincidentally) the ones in which I wrote in the margins, dog-eared the pages, and underlined underlined underlined. Even if the book isn’t mind-bending, writing down questions and notes, making connections, circling words I want to learn more about, and generally interacting with the book helps deepen my comprehension of the book.

But of the books I’ve read so far this year, 12 of them were either library books or loans from friends, meaning I didn’t interact with the physical texts at all.

Which brings me to my declarations:

Declarations about cognitive expansion:

• I will prioritize books that will stretch me. This can be achieved by continuing to read my preferred genres or by reading far outside of it. Whatever books I read, I’ll be more intentional about their ability to expand my mind.

• I will either read fewer books lent from the library or friends so that I can write in the margins and interact with the texts more, or find a better way to annotate while reading books I don’t own. Suggestions are welcome.

• For the books I own, I’ll be more generous with my marginalia. I’m particularly interested right now in recording questions in the margins as they come up.

Questions to ask yourself about cognitive expansion:

• Have you read any books this year that have stretched you?

• Has any book had the opposite effect? Made you feel dumber? (I read one of those.)

• What would you be reading if you were more intentional about cognitive expansion?

Quantity

At the beginning of 2024 I decided to separate myself from my reading goal and to instead have a reading threshold, whereby I would read no fewer than X and no more than Y books. The purpose of capping the threshold was so that I didn’t subconsciously opt for tiny books over, say, 500-page tomes that, when selected intentionally, I love.

First thing I’ll say here is that I failed. I surpassed my threshold by a few books. But that didn’t matter because the intentions prevailed and I read exactly what I wanted to read. I wanted more books like A Little Life. I wanted more books that take me a while because I keep stopping to re-read passages or underline sentences. So in that sense, my reading threshold was a success because it detached me from my reading goal.

While I set a goal this year, I hardly think about the number and, truthfully, I feel quite detached from it. I know that I read roughly a book a week, and for now, I have no intentions of doubling that. I don’t envy the people who read 100 books per year because I question the learning and possibility for retention and reflection. I think it’s a beautiful and noble pursuit, and maybe one day I will do it, but it would do nothing for me at this point in my life because I don’t have the capacity to absorb that much.

And that is the point of reading for me: absorption. Which is why the number of books I read in a year matters to me.

Declarations about quantity:

• I will continue to read whatever books I’m drawn to, no matter the length or how long they’ll take me to read. Moods over numbers!

• I will remain detached from my arbitrary reading goal. Reading is not work. Reading is life.

Questions to ask yourself about quantity:

• Has your reading goal affected the number of books you’ve read?

• Do you ever find yourself opting for a short book when really what you want to do is read the 450-page novel from the 90s you found at a used bookstore?

• Have you abandoned any books yet this year? Whatever the answer, probe the intentions behind it.

Diagnosis

Based on my questions and analysis, I’ve got a clear diagnosis.

✔️ I’m doing great.
✔️ You’re doing great.
✔️ Keep reading what you want to read and try to silence the outside noise veering you off the path you’d have chosen.

Are you joining us for My Brilliant Ferrante, a celebration of Elena Ferrante for Women in Translation Month? Throughout August, we’ll be reading Ferrante in two ways: One, a slow read of the first book in her Neapolitan Quartet, My Brilliant Friend, and two, a standalone book each week. Find details and the reading schedule here.

In case you missed it, I rounded up the 25 most iconic first sentences I’ve ever read and explained why they did it for me. Share your thoughts, share your favorites.

The 25 most iconic first sentences I've ever read

📊 Let’s see your workups 📊

❓ What does your mid-year workup look like?
❓ If you asked yourself any of the diagnostic questions above and are willing to share, I MUST hear your answers.

Thank you, love you, can’t wait to read with you.
— Kolina

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